


Strong Toil of Grace

by deedeeinfj



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 19:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: Jack was unable to meet Phryne in England because he had to chase a terrible serial killer. He ends his journey in Surabaya, East Java, where Phryne finds him on her way home to Australia.





	Strong Toil of Grace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlayfulMay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayfulMay/gifts).



> Sorry to anyone who thought I was posting a new story! This was my ficathon story from last year. It was deleted, along with all the other ficathon stories, so I'm reposting it. I _think_ this was written from PlayfulMay's prompts, but correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> PROMPTS: 1. Phryne and Jack reunite, crossing paths to get back to one another. Jack has just hopped off a plane stopping over somewhere between Australia and England, and Phryne has done the same coming from the opposite direction.
> 
> 2\. Phryne and Jack hear that a serial killer is a worldwide traveller who just recently settled in the tropics. Since no one else has been able to catch the mysterious killer, Phryne and Jack take a "vacation" and start their detective work.

After the morning he had poured his heart into kissing Phryne Fisher and then watched as a frighteningly small airplane carried her away, Jack Robinson didn't know when he would see her again, but he never would have guessed that it would be at a zoo in the Indies. Besides the fact that he'd never imagine being there himself, he hadn't received the smallest hint that she had left England and was on her way home (if, indeed, she was).

But the serial killer who had brought him here was also something he never would have imagined.

Perhaps no one in his line of work should be shocked by anything after the Whitechapel murders of several decades before, but reading about horrors in newspapers and books wasn't in the smallest way comparable to witnessing them firsthand - not to mention being the person responsible for stopping them before they were revisited on others.

"Melbourne's Jack," as the newspapers back home had taken to calling the killer (much to another Melbourne Jack's discomfiture), murdered and mutilated couples. He shot them in their heads and carved them up in a variety of ways that always included one particular detail: cutting off the man's genitals and shoving them in the dead woman's mouth. There had been a teenaged couple under a pier in Queenscliff, forever destroying one of Jack's happiest memories. A husband and wife found in an alley. A couple in a motorcar. Jack had stood soberly in morgues as seasoned policemen and coroners excused themselves to vomit. He had spent two months not only looking at horrors, but studying every minute detail of them.

Then the grisly tableaus had begun cropping up farther and farther north in a clear path up the east coast. And Jack had followed. He was as far north as Brisbane when the killings suddenly seemed to stop. Weeks passed. Jack considered leaving his tiny, grim hotel in Brisbane and going home to pore over the clues again there. Was the killer dead? It was the most hopeful scenario, but Jack doubted it. Jailed for another crime, perhaps. There was a small chance. But Jack felt sure that "Melbourne's Jack" had left the continent.

He had sent telegrams to every major port city in the north. After that, there was nothing he could do but wait. He spent hours reviewing the evidence with Brisbane's police during the day, at least until more pressing, recent crimes and the hope that their killer was gone gradually drew away their attention. The nights were spent in his hotel room, hunched over documents and photographs, his head buried in his hands as he searched for something - anything - he had missed. His dreams were a cruel mix of blood and violence and Phryne, loving touches and tender eyes and soft lips giving way to nightmares.

But he had sussed out the killer's identity. He had located the name on a ship manifest and had once again sent out notice. And again he waited for a telegram that he felt sure would come. It did. The monster had killed again in Surabaya and had been apprehended trying to board another vessel in Batavia.

So Jack found himself in East Java, collecting the statements and evidence that the local police had gathered from the crime, reviewing what they had, making sure that nothing had been missed before he returned home. It wasn't even something he had to do, not officially. It was something _he_ had to do. _The last one_ , he told himself. _It's over_.

And there, crouching down at the spot where the unfortunate couple had been found in the Surabaya zoo, with the tropical sunlight glinting off her earrings, was the last person he expected to see.

"Phryne," he murmured.

She was still at a distance, but she heard him. He watched as her head turned and her face lit up at the sight of him. Jack didn't know if his own face was capable of lighting up anymore, but he knew that he was smiling. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done that.

Bracing her hands on her knees, she pushed herself up and came to him. An airy blouse, wide-legged white trousers, her familiar cream-colored hat. Her perfume. Her red mouth.

"Jack," she said, pressing her gloved hand to his cheek. "I'd heard that the Australian investigator was in the city."

"How...?"

He motioned to the crime scene, which by now bore no indication of what had been found there. He wished that he could do the same to his mind. Even if he could just think about a joyous afternoon under a pier in Queenscliff without seeing... if he could erase that one horrific scene from his memory, he thought he could cope with all the others.

"It's been in all the papers," she said. "I asked someone to show me, but there's nothing here now." She touched his face again, this time after pulling off her glove. Her skin was warm and soft. "Your eyes are so... I know what they've seen." Her own eyes shone as she looked up at him.

"I was going to meet you in England. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. Every day, I wished..."

He suddenly felt as if he couldn't breathe, and he cast his gaze about for a bench. There wasn't one. Instead, he found himself enclosed tightly in Phryne's arms, one of her hands holding his head and stroking his hair.

"Oh, Jack," she whispered. Her breath was warm beside his ear.

"You didn't tell me you were coming home," he said.

"I wanted to surprise you, and I didn't want you to worry. I wanted to help you. But you endured everything alone and stopped him. He'll never hurt anyone again, and it's because of you." Her arms tightened around him. "My darling Jack."

His hands, which until now had been resting lightly on her hips, slid fully around her and pulled her close. Her presence was like blood - _no, no, not blood, not that_ \- like warm breath exhaled onto cold hands after coming home in winter.

"Where are you staying?" he asked. He heard a quiet gasp and realized that his words had been like soft kisses where his lips rested against her neck. He pressed an intentional kiss there, inched up slightly, and left another. "Phryne?"

"I arrived just today," she said, stepping back. "My things, such as they are, are still with the plane at the airfield."

"I'm at a very small, inexpensive place near... it isn't the type of place you're used to, but if you wanted..."

Was he frankly asking Phryne Fisher to stay in his hotel room with him? It seemed he was. He loved her, wanted her, and needed her, and he was tired of telling himself that he shouldn't have her. Even if she only gave him one night, he wanted that one night more than he'd ever wanted anything.

"Yes, I want," she said. She beamed at him and reached up to stroke the outer corner of his eye with her thumb. "There's that light. I'll make sure it stays there." She took his arm and squeezed it as they started walking. A hundred other people could have walked past them, or none at all, for all Jack knew. He could see only her. The crime scene - or the crime scene that had been - was behind them, and Jack didn't mind if it stayed there. "When was your last proper meal?"

He smiled easily. Perhaps his facial muscles were remembering how to do that again. "Back home, I should think. Mr. Butler and Miss W--Mrs. Collins seemed to be under the impression that I was a child who couldn't cook or take care of myself."

"Then they followed my stern orders to the letter," Phryne grinned, squeezing her fingers into his arm again. "I wish I had been there to take care of you. Feeding a person isn't exactly my forte, but I'm good at other things."

"Under the circumstances, I'm not sure I could have appreciated those things."

She stopped walking and turned him to face her, her hand moving from his arm to his lapels. He was fairly certain that his lapels had never been as straight as they were since Phryne Fisher had started taking them in hand.

"Is there any fauna here that you especially wanted to see?" she asked.

"No."

"Any other things you need to take care of to wrap up this case?"

"No. I saved this place for last because I knew there wouldn't be anything to... but I had to." He swallowed hard and felt the pressure in his chest building again, that pressure that made it difficult to breathe.

"It's over, Jack," she said quietly.

Somehow, hearing her say it aloud was different from repeating it constantly to himself. His mind suddenly took him back to the months after the war, to dark nights in Rosie's arms as she petted his hair and whispered, "It's over. It's over, darling." He forced himself back to the present, back to Phryne. She had brought happiness back into his life before, and he knew he would find it again. Looking at her, he was already finding it again.

"We're leaving this place, and we're going to eat," she said. "I'll tell them to bring you everything they have in the kitchen. And when you're full to bursting, we're going to walk on the beach and watch the sun set. It's going to be beautiful, and I'm going to kiss you. Then we're going to take a taxi back to wherever it is you're staying, and I'm going to make love to you."

His face was hot, his mouth dry, and all he could manage to say in reply was her name.

She smiled and slid her fingers down his tie until they met the top edge of his waistcoat. "I'm coming after you, Jack Robinson."

Hours later, after a detour for Phryne to retrieve a bag from her plane, and after a restaurant had indeed seemingly brought out everything in the kitchen, Jack found himself lying on a beach with his head in Phryne's lap. She leaned back on one hand and stroked his hair absently with the other as the sky in the west darkened into rich hues of red and orange.

"Did you tell anyone you were making your way home?"

"Yes," she said. "I've been sending telegrams to Mac and Dot along the way. If you had stayed in Melbourne, I've no doubt your guileless Senior Constable would have given me away by now." Her fingers continued to comb gently through his hair. "How did you find Nichols?" she asked softly.

"The name of someone who lived in the same building as the girl in Queenscliff. I noticed it again in a statement given by the mother of one of the victims in Sydney. She had just been... talking about her son. Friends from college, people he worked with. Nothing pertaining to the case at all. The officer who interviewed her had jotted down the names anyway. I went back and looked at the education and work histories of every victim, looking for some connection with that name. And I found it cropping up enough times to know that it was him. He knew them all, at least one of the partners in every couple he killed. Once I had a name, it was easy to link the evidence to him."

"Why did he do it? Why did he start? What made him pick his victims and go after them - and in such a way?"

"I don't know. And unless he decides to tell us, I suppose we might never know." Jack sighed. "Melbourne's Jack."

"Geoff Nichols," she said. "His name is Geoff. _You_ are Melbourne's Jack. And that's only because I graciously share you."

The sun sank and finally touched the horizon, flattening its bottom curve. Jack sat up, and Phryne leaned towards him, her eyes on his mouth. He cupped her head in his hand the way he had done on the airfield months before and drew her closer still. He looked at her as if he never wanted to look at anything else. He suspected that was probably the case.

"I thought of this every day. Kissing you again." He caressed her cheek with his thumb. "Your face. You."

She closed the short distance remaining between them and kissed him, gentle tastes of his top and bottom lips giving way to a passionate claiming of his mouth. He let her claim him. Wanted it, even. He was hers already and had been for a long time.

"We should go to your hotel now," she said, pulling back a little. Her face was flushed, her eyes danced, her wet lips shone. "I want you to have so much pleasure tonight, Jack. I want to be the one who gives it to you."

The words clawed their way out of his constricted throat before he could stop them: "I'm in love with you." He looked away quickly, horrified and furious with himself for what he had done. But how could he have helped it? She had cracked his heart open.

"Jack."

"I'm sorry. I don't know what--"

"Jack." Phryne kissed him again, coaxing his eyes back to hers. She traced her fingertips over his jaw. "We should go to your hotel now."

They did, side by side and quiet in the taxi, their hands clasped between them. He stood aside to let her enter his room first, and when he followed her in and shut the door, he realized how small the place actually was. The bed was low and narrow, little more than a cot. She had no doubt expected something at least somewhat better. She deserved better.

She sat on the bed and began unbuckling her Mary Janes. "The lavatory, Jack?" she asked.

Unable to speak, he nodded his head in the direction of a door on the other side of the tiny room. Phryne set her shoes aside, stood, and picked up her bag. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable, and I'll be right back." She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. "Perhaps... only your shoes and socks," she said softly. "I want to undress you."

She disappeared behind the door, and Jack collapsed into a straight-backed wooden chair. His shoes and socks were easily dispensed with, leaving him only to wait and to agonize over whether or not he could actually go to bed - not even a bed - with Phryne Fisher and acquit himself with any kind of dignity in the shadow of so many other men who knew exactly what they were doing and did it often.

The door across the room creaked open, and his breath was stolen by the vision of Phryne emerging in a simple white negligee.

"I could hear you thinking," she said. She reached for his hand and pulled him up. "Come here, Jack Robinson."

She pushed his jacket away from his shoulders and let it fall unceremoniously to the floor. She took up one wrist and then the other, removing his cufflinks and setting them aside on a rickety square table. As she loosened his tie and slid it from around his neck, she fixed her eyes on him and smiled. Her fingers moved to the buttons on his waistcoat, which soon joined his jacket and tie on the floor.

"I thought of you every day, too, you know," she said. She undid his top few shirt buttons and kissed the base of his throat. "Wanted you every day. I've wanted you every day for a very long time, of course." He felt her hands drop to his belt buckle, and he closed his eyes for a moment to focus and steady himself - only a moment, for he couldn't bear not to be looking at her. "But I went to England with the taste of your kiss and the promise that we could be something more, and my ordinary wanting seemed pale in comparison."

His belt fell with a dull clunk. She pulled up his shirt to untuck it from his waistband, allowing her fingers to brush his stomach, his sides, his back. Even through the material of his union suit, her touch made him tremble. She returned to the buttons down his front, freed the rest of them, and helped him shrug off the shirt. Her hands smoothed down his arms and back up again. Then, watching his face, she slid her fingers lightly down his chest and stomach to the buttons of his trousers. She made quick work of them and pushed the trousers down until they fell the rest of the way on their own. With her hands on his arms again, she tugged him forward a little so that he could step out of the material at his feet. All that remained was his underwear, and she helped him out of that as well.

He was naked before her, and he made no attempt to cover himself. He should be hard for her now, he thought, but he wasn't yet. Still, there was nothing but adoration on her face and hunger in her gaze as she pressed herself up against him. The silk of her negligee, warmed by her body, felt like heaven against his skin. Her arms wound around his neck and pulled him to her, and their kiss was both tender and insistent. He gripped the silk at her waist in both hands and held her close, swallowing her moan and answering it with one of his own. Breathing heavily, Phryne broke off the kiss. She smiled wickedly and dropped to her knees in front of him, rubbing her hands over and around his thighs.

Jack suddenly felt himself ripped away from her, standing in a cold morgue, looking at--

"Phryne," he said hoarsely. "Phryne, no. Please."

There was hurt in her eyes for only a moment before he saw the understanding dawn. She rose up and took his face in her hands. "Stay here with me," she whispered. "We're here together, happy, making love. Don't go anywhere else."

He nodded. "I'm sorry."

She pressed her forefinger to his lips. " _Don't_ ," she said, her voice kind but firm. She took his hands and guided them back to her hips. He circled over the silk with his thumbs, and she hummed in approval. "Do you want to take this off, or are you enjoying it for the time being?"

He backed her to the bed and lowered her onto it, then slid one hand up under the negligee. She was completely bare beneath the thin silk, as he had suspected, and he could feel just how much she wanted him. As unbelievable as he still found it, she wanted him. Her thighs were slick with it.

"It seems I can have both, Miss Fisher," he said. The voice he heard sounded more like himself than he had felt in a long time.

Phryne seemed to think so, too. Her eyes sparkled up at him before she closed them and arched up into his hand. He worked her with his thumb and fingers and used his free hand to cup one of her breasts over the silk. He covered her mouth and her neck (his favorite part of her) with kisses. Though the scent of her perfume had faded, he could still taste it on her skin.

She glanced at him in surprise when he shifted off the bed and knelt beside her on the floor, but he knew his intentions were quite clear when he flipped up the bottom hem of the negligee and kissed his way up her leg. He rose up on his knees and bowed his back and put his mouth on her, and she cried out. Her hands scrabbled for his where they held up her hips, and she laced her fingers through his, holding on as he pleasured her.

All he could see was her body, a gorgeous terrain of porcelain skin, black hair, and white silk. All he could hear was her voice breathing his name. All he could smell or taste was her, here where her essence was distilled and only for him. All he could feel, outside or in, was her. He was lost and never wanted to be found.

With one more ecstatic cry of his name, she came undone, and her body sank back to the bed, her chest heaving. She tightened her fingers in his. Jack freed one hand, smoothed her sweaty fringe back from her forehead, and kissed her there before lowering his mouth to hers, letting her taste herself on his tongue.

"Come here," she said.

He rejoined her in the bed, holding himself up above her, but she put her arms around him and pulled his full weight down onto her. She held him there for some time, rubbing her hands over his back and kissing him. She lowered one hand to his buttock and squeezed it and grinned into their kiss, and he grinned back, and they were all teeth.

When she indicated that she wanted to roll them over, he cooperated and helped her do so. He had no doubt that she could flip him and pin him in any normal bed, but their current situation had its limitations.

She reached down between them and touched him gently. He was still not hard for her, and he felt the shame twisting in his gut. Phryne didn't seem perturbed in the slightest. She placed her hand briefly between her legs, then put her slickened hand back on him, using her own wetness to ease her strokes. Without stopping the movement of her hand, she kissed him, languid and unhurried. Her thumb swept up the length of him and swirled slowly over the tip. His breath caught as he felt his body stirring and coming to life in her hand. Because bringing him to life was what Phryne Fisher did.

"I want you inside me, Jack," she murmured, sucking on his bottom lip. "I've waited so long to have you inside me."

Her touch and her words soon had him hard and aching in her hand at last. She eased down his body slightly, leaving kisses as she went. As her lips moved lower over his belly, he tensed.

"Phryne," he managed to say in a strained voice.

"You really don't want my mouth?" she asked.

"I can't bear the thought of it. Not yet."

"But you like my hand on you? It feels good?"

"Y-yes."

"Good," she smiled, watching his face as she stroked him. "Do you want me to keep doing this, or do you want to be inside me?"

"Inside. Please."

She laughed and leaned in to kiss him. Then she situated herself, guided him inside her, and slowly, carefully lowered herself onto him.

"Oh, Jack," she sighed. She was taking slow breaths and keeping her body still, giving them both a moment to adjust. "Jack, I love the way you feel."

Quite beyond words, Jack settled his hands on her hips and thrust up against her. "Please," he said.

Bracing her hands on his chest, she started a slow, steady rhythm over him. "How do you want it?" she asked. "Fast? Slow? Hard?"

"I want..." He could hardly string two words together. His brain had short-circuited. He wanted her however he could have her. Fast, hard, upside-down, or sideways, he was going to shatter. "I want you to... to do whatever will bring you with me."

Looking down at him with soft eyes, Phryne took one of his hands and raised it to her lips, kissed it, and guided it between her legs. "Then bring me with you, Jack."

She kept up the rhythm she had started, though she changed the angle slightly as he worked her with his hand. As she increased her pace, he followed suit with his fingers. He raised his other hand to her breast, thumbing the point of her nipple over the silk. She was moving fast now, bearing down hard on both his hand and his cock, driving them both to the edge.

"Phryne," he gasped, not sure how much longer he could go on.

"Almost, Jack, alm--"

Her voice broke on a cry as she climaxed, and he followed her immediately with a groan of pleasure and relief. Her body sank against his, her face pressed into his neck. They lay there in a silence broken only by their labored breathing.

"How do you feel?" she asked. She circled her fingers idly on his chest. "Still in love with me?"

He shut his eyes and sighed. "Phryne, I know I shouldn't have--"

"Jack." She pushed up from his chest slightly and looked down at him. "Jack, do you really not know that I love you? I'm not sure what else I could say or do to convince you."

His mouth opened, then closed again. She lay down and nuzzled her face once more into his neck. He rested his hand on her back, his fingers splayed over bare skin and silk.

"You could fly me back home," he said.

He felt her lips curve against his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: I wrote a smutty, happy [bonus scene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4194279/chapters/19618570) to follow this story because Jack deserved it.
> 
> While researching for this story, I learned that the present-day zoo in Surabaya is infamous for abusive neglect of its animals, including many endangered species. There is a [petition](https://www.change.org/p/president-joko-widodo-close-surabaya-zoo) calling for the zoo to be closed, for those who might be interested in signing.


End file.
